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Title: On the Origin of Languages: Studies in Linguistic Taxonomy by Merritt Ruhlen ISBN: 0-8047-2321-4 Publisher: Stanford Univ Pr (S) Pub. Date: June, 1994 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $65.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3 (5 reviews)
Rating: 1
Summary: Be warned!
Comment: You must be aware, when you purchase this book, that you are getting a fringe viewpoint. As someone has pointed out, Ruhlen's methodology and conclusions are akin to those of the "Chariots of Gods" infamy, or, I might add, the creationists in biology. They're out there, but they find their audience mostly among laymen and popular TV producers -- those with no patience for the science of it but with eagerness for the catchy conclusions. The scientific community rejects their work, and for good reasons.
This is not to say that this book is entirely without value -- there is a synthesis of a lot of research from various fields, like archealogy and genetics. Creationists also have interesting things to say. But you must be wary when reading zealots -- they are prone to including only the favorable evidence.
The problem, briefly, with the Greenberg method that Ruhlen defends, is that it is too indiscrimating. Thus it will sometimes yield correct results (in essence, this is how Jones arrived at the PIE hypothesis, and Greenberg held this up as a justification for his work), but will also suffer from false positives. Thus Jones went on to propose a relationship between Malay and Arabic, and later linguists have classified Armenian with the Iranian languages.
These failures are due to but one of several flaws of the method:
words may be borrowed from unrelated languages, sometimes wholesale. Others include chance similarity, nursery rhyme similarity, arbitrary standards for establishing similarity, relationships obscured by sound change, etc. Mainstream linguists, therefore, use methods relying on *regularity* of sound correspondences and shared grammatical innovations. This requires meticulous examination of data which is much more careful (and mundane!) than simple eyeballing short lists for what you think are sort of similar items. And because of how language change really works, the results it yields will likely never be as dramatic.
In short, no, this is not a breakthrough, but a vigorous defense of what most experts regard as a hopeless direction.
Rating: 5
Summary: LINGUISTICS AT ITS MOST EXCITING
Comment: In these 13 studies, the author presents compelling evidence for one common origin for all the world's languages. The book is certain to accelerate research towards the ultimate reconstruction of the proto-language and to cast more light on mankind's unknown past, although much needs to be done. In this regard the work of Alan Bomhard (Nostratic) and Joseph Greenberg (Eurasiatic)is also of great value. Because this work challenges the current orthodoxy it has elicited much venomous criticism from those linguists who claim that genetic relationship cannot be demonstrated after a certain lapse of time. But this is disproved by the 27 global etymologies so thoroughly documented here in the form of a phonetic/semantic gloss followed by current examples from many different language families. It is statistically impossible for this to be the result of chance. When looking at the Nostratic/Eurasiatic or Dene-Sino-Caucasic reconstructions, the correspondences become more and more obvious. In other words, the further back in time one reconstructs, the clearer the similarities become. Recent advances in biological taxonomy (Cavalli-Sforza) serve to confirm this author's classifications of macro-families, and by implication, monogenesis of all languages. This is a well-written book demonstrating impeccable scholarship and is an exciting read. Readers interested in Ruhlen's work may also want to investigate the title "Sprung From Some Common Source," edited by Sydney M. Lamb, available here on amazon.com
Rating: 5
Summary: GREAT BREAKTHROUGH IN LANGUAGE CLASSIFICATION
Comment: This book is so poisonously criticized by another reviewer that one questions the motives. When Joseph Greenberg published his research on African languages in the early 60s, in which he identified only four macro-families, it was treated with the same type of scorn as displayed here. Yet his classification is now generally accepted. As for Amerind, there are some very solid supra-liguistic arguments in favour of classifying the American languages into 3 macro-families: (1) Christy Turner's dental studies show 3 distinct shapes of teeth in the native peoples of the Americas, corresponding with Greenberg's classification. (2) Genetic studies of native Americans also indicate the same 3 groups (Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza). (3) Most archaeologists believe that humans entered the Amricas about 12 000 years ago. If this is so, the "splitter" linguists must explain how so many (up to 200 according to them) language families arose in such a short time. Science will speak for itself and does not need self-appointed champions to foolishly charge against anybody who dares to propose a new theory or express a different opinion. Ruhlen's scholarship is impeccable, he's a great writer and there is an extensive bibliography for every chapter. This well-written book presents compelling evidence for a common origin for all the world's language families. It will in time achieve a place of honour in the fields of historical linguistics, history and archaeology.
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Title: A Guide to the World's Languages: Classification by Merritt Ruhlen ISBN: 0804718946 Publisher: Stanford Univ Pr Pub. Date: October, 1991 List Price(USD): $31.95 |
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Title: Genes, Peoples, and Languages by Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Mark Seielstad ISBN: 0520228731 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: 07 May, 2001 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: Mapping Human History: Discovering the Past Through Our Genes by Steve Olson ISBN: 0618091572 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co Pub. Date: 15 May, 2002 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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